MADURAI: With as many as 45 villages that are prone to frequent caste atrocities, Madurai topped the list of districts in Tamil Nadu housing such vulnerable regions.
This was recently revealed in an RTI response provided by the Social Justice and Human Rights wing of Tamil Nadu police. As per the response, of the total 394 villages that are prone to caste atrocities across the state, as many as 171 are in the southern districts.
To mitigate the situation, the Social Justice and Human Rights wing has already been conducting awareness programmes in the vulnerable villages. Activists urge the state government to ensure that apart from the social justice department, the Adi Dravidar welfare and human rights departments should also jointly host more awareness campaigns to curb caste-related crimes.
Other districts that topped the list are Tirunelveli with 29 vulnerable villages, Tiruchy with 24, Thanjavur with 22, and Theni with 20. Kallakurichi and Chengalpattu appear last on the list with just one such village each. According to the RTI response, 597 awareness meetings were held in 2021, 988 in 2022, 3,221 in 2023 and as many as 1,861 meetings within just the first three months of 2024.
The maximum number of awareness meetings (534) was held in Coimbatore district, which was ranked 13th on the list with 11 villages. A total of just 335 meetings have been held so far in Madurai district (104 meetings in 2024).
Social activist S Karthik, who filed the RTI application, said, "The departments concerned should jointly conduct awareness meetings in all the villages where caste violence is prevalent and take steps to foster constructive social harmony. He also added that special prizes of `25 lakh have to be announced for the village that achieves 'zero caste atrocities cases' and becomes a role model for others.